we are about as subtle as an earthquake
by grecoism
Summary: "Having children means making amends, Erik." Post DoFP, each chapter concentrating on the three long lost Lehnsherr children: Maximoff twins and Lorna Dane. It starts out slowly; and with the creation of an Anti-Mutant association. Xavier recruits his first pupils, restarts the school and meanwhile there is a chaotic search for not only Magneto but his children.
1. Pietro

"_I let you in like a bullet to my brain / I let you stay_"

wakey wakey – take it like a man

i.

Your birth certificate says that you have been born in February, nineteen fifty-five, Poland. Your mother's maiden name is Magda Eisenhardt, your father's name is altogether unknown.

What the piece of paper doesn't say, is that your sister is only three minutes older than you, and that your mother makes it to America just to put you both in the hands and care of a woman named Marya Maximoff. Your mother makes it to America only to die: slowly and alone.

It does not say that you can easily run around the district twice, within half an hour, at age two. Nor does it mention that when your sister is hungry or tired she sets thing on fire or makes them disappear.

At the right edge of the paper there is a black and white picture. Its lack of color conceals the fact that your hair has always been gray, like an old man's.

The certificate is a piece of a junk; a lie, and that's what you hate the most – it's a piece of normality in a life that is far from ordinary.

ii.

You love Marya; and so for her and Wanda's sake you bear through the sluggish pace of high-school. You barely finish Junior year in your fifth school, but your grades are nice. Still, both groups -peers and teachers- are terrible: they hate you, and the feeling is indeed, mutual.

Nothing new under the sun.

All reviews and remarks are the same: too arrogant, too spoiled, too impatient – and you smile and snarl. You have won this race a long time ago and they have not even realized that it is one.

Still, you try to please, to adjust. You've even went so far to change your name: Pietro is apparently too hard for your generally degenerate classmates, so you are Peter for them, for Marya and her husband. You are Peter for Marya's little child, Susan. For everyone but Wanda.

Nothing new under the sun.

(it will be always like this, but you don't know it yet:

Everyone, but Wanda.)

iii.

For the first time, everything is happening too fast, even for you.

Your break in and out of Pentagon and watch the world burn as they find a name for the likes of you and Wanda.

Mutants.

You can feel that Marya practically burns holes in your head with her gaze, and yet all you think of three distinct things.

First:

_How will I explain this to Wanda?_

Then:

_Great job, Pietro. You let loose a mass-murderer mutant maniac._

And thirdly:

_That helmet is just fucking ridiculous._

Wanda comes back from her school trip which you very shrewdly skipped, and is not angry but sad as you confess.

Which adds to the guilt. You can bear it though: it's a feeling that grew with you.

In a way, guilt is the sinew of your existence.

iv.

Marya tries to protect you from the news, to create a vast but thick layer of shield around you both; you cannot go anywhere alone and you cannot watch TV, unless she is there. But you cannot escape hate and mass-hysteria easily.

There are protests and new clubs and nasty, vulgar graffities all around the world just to cherish the very existence of mutanthood. In the last week of August, your sister smuggles home a poster one day; which says,

JOIN MUTANT CONTROL AGENCY, BE A PURIFIER!

The background is horrid, all vivid red and loud yellow, it makes both of you sick at the stomach and you say,

_Burn it, Wanda._

She blinks. The paper catches fire.

v.

It happens like this. In September, you both start Senior year.

In September, TV announces that they are searching for a girl named Lorna Dane, who tore apart a plane with a flicker of her mind, with her dangerous, unpredictable and unpermitted mutant powers.

At least, that is what Henry Gyrich, the assholest of all with the most money says, live on TV. He also kindly orders Lorna Dane to give up herself in the name of social justice.

Fucker.

What you find even more suprising, but not unpleasantly so, is that Charles Xavier (luckily well-washed, shaven and drug-free, with a better fashion sense and no sunglasses), Doctor of Genetics, head and representative of the Xavier's School for Gifted Youngsters has a whole retortion speech ready and fired, on the very next day, and he also calls Gyrich a liar. Subtly, as he would.

You are a bit suspicious of this new Xavier, but Wanda is into it.

The third day, there is a fee on Lorna Dane's head, the "THOUSAND DOLLARS IF ALIVE" under her photograph is big and atrocious.

She is thirteen years old, five years younger than them.

Wanda cries for the first time in years and you start dreaming of not being able to run.

vi.

"Pietro!"

Someone is running down the stairs.

You sleep there nowadays, but this time, fatigue found you sudden, next to the couch, so you are stretched out on the floor.

When you open your eyes, Marya already has her arms around your shoulders, half-shaking, half-embrancing them.

You will remember her words for the rest of your lives.

"My love, you have to run." her words are very soft, but she is crying.

"Mum, I…" Glasses shatter and someone is swearing.

Running comes to you as a reflex. You are out of the house with Wanda in your arms way before the MCA begins to search the house.

(_You have won this race too, but your heels and eyes are strangely burning_.)

It will take hours to sink that Marya called you Pietro.


	2. Wanda

"_A witch is born out of the true hungers of her time_."

Ray Bradbury – Long After Midnight

vii.

"Xavier will look for us" you say to convince your brother not to run so carelessly.

The Control Agency can track you down easily once you use the powers. You figure that out on the second day, after Pietro runs more than two hundred miles. Purifiers in black masks are already waiting for you in Somerset.

So you both agree to switch speed to safety, and decide to take the bus to Philadelphia, using only a sad smile and great deal of stolen money.

"Please, I know it's hard. But let's wait."

It's the fourth day, and there is no sign that anyone would come or care.

viii.

There is a picture of your mother in your room, placed carefully on the desk, next to the newest Queen album and an Arthur Miller drama. The photo is the one thing you wish you could have brought with you.

Magda is very young, around twenty, and pregnant. She has a smile which reminds you of Pietro, but she passed her dark and wavy hair, heart-shaped face and snubby nose on to you.

The shape of your eyes though, the intense, pensive gaze in them, are not hers.

You stare at your reflection in the tiny and cheap motel mirror, and wonder if you'd recognize your father just by his eyes.

ix.

You watch TV every night at a cramped bar next door where Pietro buys himself a beer, then smirks and orders you a Pepsi Light. You shoot your tongue out and try to kick his shins, but end up aimlessly kicking the air.

It's your sixth day in sweet Philadelphia, almost eight o'clock.

The residents of the pub are almost the same: The Guy With Too Much Oil in his hair, a woman who looks like Kermit the Frog, a man smoking twenty-four per seven with her mute girlfriend and the bartender who drinks a pint of scotch whenever someone orders.

And you, obviously, teenagers stuck in the same place, same clothes, waiting for a shitty miracle to happen.

_I am getting cynical, aren't I? _

You listen to Mahalia Jackson deep, soothing voice in the background, up until Too Much Oil burps out,

"Would you mind? Gyrich is talking."

t.

You exchange a look with Pietro. He asks for another beer.

The forenamed man appears on the screen, all smug and rich, and you know instantly your brother has the same thought: just how utterly satisfying it would be to break this man's, this nobody's nose so he would bleed all across his expensive tie and shirt.

"... proud to announce that MCA will now continue its job under governmental care and funds."

"Waitwhathow?" gapes Pietro, no longer caring to order. You are, too, speechless to comment.

"After introducing our basic policy to Secretary of Defense, Paul Hills; we are fairly certain that within this month or the next, the leader of Mutant Terrorist Organization, namely Erik Lehnsherr, alias Magneto…"

Gyrich's mouth twitches and the reporters are laughing in the background at the mention of the name.

"What are you laughing at, assheads?"

Both Pietro and the bartender stare at you, and you realize you have said the insult out loud.

"… our associates and coworkers are currently in search of Lehnsherr and his group. It is also significant to mention, that a week ago our intels informed us that Lehnsherr has gotten out with the help of his eighteen-year old son and that…"

Gray hair and a cheeky smile appears on TV. Your brother is onscreen.

You both freeze.

Then dark, thick hair and sharp eyes floats in. You are also onscreen.

"The twins have been under the care of the Maximoff family, and have an impressive list of former pecuniary offences and nonfinished legal procedures…"

You feel as is they had snuffed all the air out of the room and your lungs.

_Liarsliarsliarsliarsliar_s, a voice chants in your head. One second more of this, and you might go insane.

You touch your brother's arm.

"Pietro" you breathe, but he is very still, and this frightens you more than anything in your entire life. "Come on, come, come."

The voice of Gyrich continues, but no one in the room is looking at the TV anymore, just the two of you.

You are as petrified as them, so you remain there, tugging at your brother's stupid silver jacket, wishing you had the nerve to slap him.

Pietro is the only one now staring, glued to the telly. He is desperate, you realize, and you feel that familiar pinch of sorrow in your heart and stomach.

"… we want to warn you; do not approach these individuals without calling a Purifier or requesting semi-military help. His youngest, Lorna Dane, blew up a plane just a month ago which we presumed to have been the retaliation for the unsuccessful assassination atte.."

The TV explodes suddenly, followed by the tables catching fire and the alcoholics beverages turning crimson red and turning into apple-sized rubies.

The air is thick with the power you exude, and you are drunk on it.

It's Pietro's turn to grab your shoulders-

"Shoot the mutie!" Kermit shrieks from behind. You snap your fingers and the lights go out. Then Pietro has you in his arms, as always. "They'll kill us!"

In the corner of your eyes, you spot the mute girlfriend catching her man's arms as he tries to free his gun from its case. You can't read her lips, because the air and colors and the place around you merge into unanimous mass.

x.

"No one hears you if you shout this fast, Pietro."

xi.

You make it to Newark, where your brother is shot through his right leg.

MCA would not have caught you, were it not for you, your panic and a blank cartridge going off.

Here is the thing.

The very first thing Pietro tells you at age six is that no one can stop him if he is running.

No one.

Nothing.

Nyet, non, nada.

No water, no walls, no bullets – he is too fast for any of that shit.

You believe him then, because you are children; and you believe it all through your youth, because his nature does not permit him to lie to you – you know this in your bones.

And you know this, at age eighteen, because you see it with your own eyes; eyes that are so very much alike your father's.

"Stop" you shriek, because you hear a gun going off on the right and it is so, so close you are afraid it hit either Pietro or you, unknowingly.

He does stops, and this time, the bullet truly meets the flesh, and you have never heard a sound so heartrending as your brother's scream.

He stoops, blood staining the autumn ground under him.

"NO!"

"I got them, Philip!" someone yells and there is an answer which you are uncapable of making out: animals sound the same to you.

You look around, feeling helpless and hate it.

It's the middle of the night, almost the border of the district, a no name suburban area.

Four men in horrible leather jackets are running towards you, but you look for the sniper that shot Pietro.

Someone moves on the roof and you bellow, trying to light him up so he would burn with pain too.

It doesn't work; and you light the house on fire instead.

The sniper shouts though, something to…

You?

"RUN!"

The sniper sounds female.

"Wanda" it's Pietro, whispering; he looks too tired to scream anymore. "Just..."

"Not a chance" you say, kneeling next to him. Your hands hover over the wound, and he hisses. The bullet is still in him; imbedded. "You go, I go."

The four men in the horrible outfit reach them.

When you look up, a gun is pressed to your forehead. It's the smoking man from Philadelphia. He grins as you spit on his shoes.

"Hey, witchy bitch." the other three laugh, and now, this close you can make up the enormous, bleach-white letter P tattooed on their leather uniform. Creepy. "Let's play a game where we wait for you brother to bleed out, and then I might send you after him."

You feel very tired as Pietro hands grab yours and you squeeze them gently.

_Yes, I see it too._

A silhouette of a girl approaches and the guns in the Purifiers' hands start to melt and crackle. And you find yourself laughing, because when faced with a terrible situation you can do so much with your sanity.

"What the fuck…"

"Hello" says Lorna Dane, now fully distinguishable. She was the one on the roof, you recognize her voice now. She looks and smells like a homeless drug addict. She has been a runaway for months, you realize. The auburn glow of her hair is pretty much faded, the roots of it are bright green, matching her eyes. "You have twenty-five seconds to run away or I will bury you beneath your cars."

"Like hell you will," snaps Smoking Man, but takes a step aside from both of you. It's very comical. You decide to help and make a complicated abrakadabra motion with your hands, and two of the four start to sprint.

Pietro chuckles loudly.

"Twenty-five," counts Lorna. She sounds adamant and vicious; her nature evidently not matching her adolescent, lithe appearance at all.

Smoking man swears.

"Twenty-four…" The remaining Purifiers shrewdly choose not to tempt fate, and escape after the others.

"Thank you" you manage to say once they disappear.

"The sniper…" Pietro grits through his teeth. Lorna positions herself near his legs, doesn't look up as she answers.

"Already taken care of."

"Oh" you say. Silence. "I owe you one."

"I didn't know where he was until you decided to burn the building down. So it was teamwork, I guess." Your head swarms. Her profile is just like Pietro's. "I can get the bullet out."

"Thanks" says Pietro, then cracks the most shit-eating grin. "By the way: welcome to the family, Lorna Green."

"Dane."

"Whatever."


	3. Lorna

_I live in a city sorrow built__._

The National - Sorrow

i.

It is no suprise that the media lies.

Truth is: at age thirteen, you are not capable of tearing a plane apart.

But you could do it, just once, ripping metal as easily as falling asleep. All you needed was some terror; fear so deep that you still feel sick when you think about it.

You were six then, and the media is seven years too late.

ii.

Arthur Dane knows all about you mother's pregnancy when he marries her. They meet in Salt Lake City, in the March of nineteen-sixty, and sometimes in the following three months, your mother moves to California with him.

Life seems good. Dane calles her "Amazing Anna" because she is in great pain during pregnancy

(_And she is so very silent about it._

_You are poisoning her body after all. It's your blood; your father's blood that causes all the trouble._

_You don't know it yet, but it will always be like this.)_

, and there is even greater pain when she bears you.

(_Amazing Anna is crying openly - with joy_)

She barely makes it.

iii.

It goes like this. Arthur Dane is violent -

No.

There is always a cause. Human nature can so very easily be reduced to physics. Thus for every consequence, there is a cause.

_Thesis, antithesis, synthesis._

Dane, an otherwise jovial man, despises drama. He likes flying, has a soft spot for whiskey and women. He hates drama, but you are a constant reminder of your mother's not-so-amazing past and not-so-modest desires, and that is something a proud, military veteran cannot forgive or forget. Not to you, to your mother, not to himself.

In this set-up you are the cause, violence is the consequence, and the synthesis-

A plane which holds almost a hundred people in it - wait, no. No, that's the setting.

_The setting._

A non-retour, ninety minutes flight to San Francisco. They serve you orange juice in a plastic glass.

The color of the drink amazes your young eyes and helps to keep out the constant bickering and the buzzing in your brain. Your senses are sharp in this plane. And though you cannot see it, you know the position and place of every screw and clam and bolt.

A barbed sound cuts through the air, followed by a painful and familiar gasp. That's what six year old Lorna Dane perceives -

Arthur Dane standing up to dragging his wife to the very back of the aircraft in order to teach her a lesson.

_The antithesis_. Fueled by self-pity and some alcohol.

You cry out, but no one looks up.

But everyone - the three of you, and ninety-four others- falls into metal shreds and metal blood and metal flesh and screams, all in flames, burning.

_Synthesis_, you think.

iv.

They call you a miracle and the accident an engine failure caused by technical factors.

And still, the miracle you performed gives you a free ticket to the hospital where they treat you like porcelain, and then an orphanage near San Diego where they treat you like shit. Nothing new. The food is a bit worse, the beds smell of piss, but at least the people there don't see you as a victim.

You decide to let yourself grow then. Slowly but surely, on three days old meals and geology books and the knowledge that you will be free soon.

It is nineteen seventy-three and a man - a monster, apprarently - named Erik Lenshserr escapes from the Pentagon.

v.

"No need to fear, we just want to ask some simple questions Mrs. Etham."

The headmistress glances at you one last time on the way out, leaving you with the two agents trying to look like police officers. But you are familiar with both police and emergency, and these people are soldiers.

"Lorna, yeah?" asks the one on the right with a jovial face and graying hair. The other one sits next to her on the bed before she could reply or object. This man does not smile at all.

When she continues to stare, the gray one coughs and sits on her other side.

This is very awkward, you think and unconsciously touch your hair, freshly dyed and rich brown.

"We just want to ask some questions, dear."

The rude one reaches for a wallet in his pocket and you can see a flash of steel and know not so deep down that the semi-automatic is made of exactly a thousand and five grams of solid metal. It is loaded and recoil-operated; a twenty-two, perhaps. There is an all-too familiar buzz in your head, weighing on the very back of your brain.

"Do you know this man?"

Aware that both men are glued on your face, your stare at the picture presented.

"No." A lie. Everyone knows this face, this man; Magneto. You think of terrible wonders, leaders long or almost dead.

You also think, this cannot happen to me.

The photo is well-worn, taken maybe in the times of custody, but its artificiality does not lessen the ferocity in Erik Lehnsherr's eyes. He is handsome enough, you note, and were it note for all that anger and aptitude for mass murder, he would have the world at his feet. Of that, you are sure.

"Miss Dane?" You look up into the dead, dead eyes of the smiling, graying man. "Are you sure?"

"Yep."

"Do you mind coming with us? Just formalities."

Liars.

Lies.

Stinking, huge-ass lies your modest room cannot contain.

The question is so sudden that you do not dare move. The buzzing swells in your head, numbing tongue and heart. You are floating, existing on a base level. Your eyelids feel heavy.

They must have felt it too, for the one on her left touches his belt, reaching for the twenty-two.

It happens so suddenly, without noise.

As soon as he grabs it, the gun falls apart. Small metal shreds and pieces; like dirty glass, fall on the ground, in less then a second. The man is stunned, the other tries to jump on you, and you think: keep your hands off me keep your hands off me keep your -

You sense the handcuffs they brought and try to convince the object to help you, but the two of them are on you and are so strong. There is a sharp, stinging sensation that is doubled by the force by which they are holding you down.

You try to bite, and have no time to register the slap the graying agent gives you. You taste metal as blood spreads in your mouth. Something oh-so-familar. Could you bend the iron in your blood? In theirs?

The men look livid.

"You little cunt" Which of them says this, you do not know. Don't care. Your reflection in the mirror across seems to be a hazy glow, you are a halo with pain and some pride. The same furious, deep voice drags you back. "Do you have any idea what your father did?

"My father is dead." you answer softly and think of ripping apart a plane with screams.

The all is in darkness.


	4. The trio

_But, good my brother,__ d__o not, as some ungracious pastors do,_

_Show me the steep and thorny way to heaven_

Shakespeare \- **Hamlet**

xii.

The bullet comes out clean and easy, but the wound is a deep one. Pietro needs both of their support to stand and hobble.

"Never again" he says as he eyes Lorna and the bullet in her hand. "This was the worst experience of my life and I had to act normally in P.E. for almost twelve years."

He is smiling, but Wanda knows better - he is so pale he could pass as a ghost.

"You live close?" Wanda asks her sister (_godgodgod_-), hope in her voice. She is assessing the risks of staying close to the scene of ambush. By morning, this place will be swarmed with Purifiers. Westchester is close enough to smell and sight. _Were they invisible_, she thinks, but alas.

Pietro's body is heavy, but Lorna doesn't whine. The crown of her head is neon green, vivid in the painful edges of the street lights.

"I know someone who can help. He helped me to hide after - "

She stops herself.

And Wanda is on the brink of asking, but in this light, this angle it hits her just how _young_ Lorna looks. How young she is. Thirteen is still a child, and under all that grime and dirt and fatigue and determination, she is just a premature face. Wanda is reminded that, unlike them, _she_ has been running and hiding for months now.

So instead of arguing, she simply says:

"Alright."

"Yeah," their brother chimes in. "P.E. is a pain in the ass."

Then he passes out.

xiii.

He awakens to the smell.

"Jesus Christ on the cross" it takes a great effort to speak without throwing up. "Did someone die?"

It is very dark. In fact, it is so dark that his heart skips a beat. He is being dragged through something wet, knee-deep, and somewhere near or far (he isn't sure, navigating in the dark was never his forte) water is trickling. On his left, someone is wheezing, on his right, someone is taking deep breaths.

"Wanda?"

"I'm here. We are in the tunnels."

"What tunnels?" Pietro asks, stupidly, but he doesn't really want to know, because he kinda knows the answer. And doesn't want to.

"We are in the sewers, my dude" sing-songs Lorna. "Watch out for the rats."

"God" he feels himself heaving, ready to vomit up air by itself.

Happy are those who don't know shit. Literally.

"How can you see?"

He feels the person on the left (Wanda) shrug her shoulders.

"I just know. It's like the shapes of the tunnel are in my mind."

They have had this conversation a lot of times, but the sheer diversity of Wanda's powers never failed to amaze Pietro. He remembered Wanda setting things to fire when she was angry or tired; he remembered he found her levitating in her sleep during Christmas break when they were twelve. When Brian Lacoste tried to grab her ass last year, Wanda panicked, and before Pietro could bat an eyelash and pummel him into a nonexistent mass, Lacoste simply disappeared. For a week, Wanda sincerely believed she simply wished his existence away. She wouldn't stop crying. But then Lacoste's body, as his parents later told the press, appeared somewhere in Poland, naked as the day he was born. Quite a lot of picture aired in the Polish press. He was never seen in school again. Wanda still feels sheepish whenever the story comes up. Pietro has one of those newspaper articles at home, just in case.

And now the navigation in the dark.

"Do you have night-vision?" Lorna asks, curious.

"I don't know." Wanda sighs. "Nothing makes sense anymore."

"A-fucking-men."

But at least, there are no rats.

xiv.

Finally, after what feels like hours of swimming in shit, there is light at the end of the tunnel. And voices. People talking, humming as a whole. It is soothing - the atmosphere becomes warmer with the addition.

Yet Lorna halts anyway.

"Okay" she sounds nervous. Is she afraid? "So basically, this is the mutant underground. They are called Morlocks. We can stay here a bit, and they will help us, but I don't think..."

Wanda squeezes his arm. He guesses she is doing the same to Lorna, because she deflates a bit.

"You haven't told them?"

"No." Lorna says in a small voice. Then clears her throat, and straightens her spine. "And what is there to tell? It is not like he -"

She bites her own words. Wanda reaches out again, this time to squeeze her shoulders, their silhouettes lanky. The way they clutch at each others, is like the junipers trees in their garden, at home, Pietro thinks. Something sinks in his chest. Perhaps, it's his heart.

There is a great, darkened pause. The voices sound a bit louder, a bit more closer - or maybe the silence in between them has grown greater.

"It isn't like what?" Wanda whispers. Her voice is very low and she is very still.

"He..." Lorna gulps. Neither of them have looked at the elephant until now. The room was too crowded - Lorna probably had no one to discuss it with, and he and Wanda were too shocked and too busy to run away to properly address the issue.

"He - " she repeats, but then there is a rustling sound and the hairs on Pietro's neck stand up, alerted.

"Art thou afeard?"* says a voice suddenly, from behind them. Pietro yelps. Lorna jumps and as a result falls straightaway into the water, almost dragging Pietro and Wanda with her. His twin stands her ground, though he feels the water dropping its temperature in her wake.

"The fuck, Caliban," Lorna spits once and then twice into the sewer water. She sounds soaked to the marrow of her bones. "Why the fuck would you do this?"

The man, or creature, called Caliban makes a noise. It could be called laughing, but it's more like a full-body shake accompanied by the sound of stepping on a mouse.

He feels both Wanda and Lorna drawing nearer to him. He is almost used to the smell. But not used to the fear. Caliban's eyes are big, yellow and translucent, as if he was dead and omnipotent. He stares at them for a long time.

_If he tries to touch any of us_, Pietro swears, _I am going to kick him in the nuts. _

"Oh come ye, Three Kings from lands afar" Caliban says at last. "Enter this great kingdom of darkness, the Morlock Empire for the damned and the distraught! Come, if you be not afraid of the light!"

Walking is not what he did, per se, but rather, Caliban slides away, before them, as quickly as he arrived.

For a moment, neither of them budges.

"The fuck was he doing?"

Pietro doesn't add the more obvious question, which was along the lines of: Is this guy crazy or what?

"Looking for food" Lorna's shudder is visible, even in this mock-light. "He eats rats raw, you know."

"Right, you are making this up, aren't you?" Pietro balances himself on their shoulders. "You are fucking with me on purpose, so that you can eat my share."

"Suppose he heard us?"

"There was nothing to hear, Wanda. And anyway, what could a group called 'Morlocks' do to us? They sound like a disbanded rock band from the seventies who abused heroin and leather."

Lorna is about to open her mouth when they hear the strange lilt again.

"Come, come, children, Caliban has the table ready, Caliban has the table full!"

They groan, tired to the bone, but start marching toward the light anyway.

xv.

Somewhere outside Washington D.C., near Wheaton-Glenmont, Marya Maximoff is preparing to leave her home with her husband, Luther.

No more than six special agents are waiting for them to leave their house (semi-permanently) and make an official statement and written testimony down at Homeland Security. Marya calls their lawyer immediately. She takes Susannah to her stay with her sister in Arlington while they are away. Luther was and continues to be unhappy about the situation: as if his bad mood would miraculously prevent the feds from taking them in.

House arrest had been worst. They wouldn't even let Susannah out in the garden.

"Whining doesn't help" Marya said to Luther then.

"Letting them run didn't either" Luther doubled, but there must have been something murderous on her face, because he never mentioned this again.

And at last, the day arrived. And as any thorough mother and wife would, Marya packs only the necessities for their trip: money, ID, clothes, toiletries. And because Marya has seen a lot and has brought up two children who were not her own, yet were (and are) her own, she packs her brother's Colt, all shiny and fully loaded - because precious things are to be taken care of meticulously and constantly. She has lived her whole life like this.

It happens so fast she has barely time to register it. Later, when asked about the incident, she would say: "I couldn't believe it." And because she couldn't believe it, Marya Maximoff, a strong woman, but a woman who was used to different miracles, couldn't do anything about what happened.

She looks out their window one last time. The agents said a couple of days, but Marya has a horrible feeling - has had it since she let Pietro and Wanda go - as if a catastrophy is riping under their very eyes, but they are helpless to do anything about it.

When she looks out, one of the agents - the shortest one - raises his right hand. Time to go.

"Luther!" she shouts. A grunt. "We are going!"

By the time she makes it to the front door, all of the agents are bound into some sort of live-knot. They are hanged by their wrist, their expression long and pained. One of them is weeping. Another has passed out. A third has his mouth open - and it would have been comical, were it not for his mouth foaming blood.

"Oh Lord" that is Luther whimpering in the background, near her back. "Have mercy."

Very calmly, - it must be the shock - Marya attempts to make out in the setting sun what is it that binds these agents together. But before she could properly _look_, she notices something that makes her brain stop working properly. The something is, of course, a someone.

A man crosses the street, not minding the live street human-chandelier that decorate their front lawn. He is lanky and properly, sharply dressed. But he is also older now; wearier than she remembered him to be from TV. Older and sharper and angrier. What would Magda think? What would Magda do?

As he is nearing them, Luther gapes and gasps and Marya prays he doesn't say anything stupid. Because she remembers now: Magda is dead.

"We need to talk." says Erik Lehnsherr and crosses the doorstep, eyeing the destroyed doormat very carefully.


	5. Underground

**eigengrau**: _an untranslatable, German word also known as eigenlicht, describing the color the eye sees in the dark, in absence of light._

xvi.

The sanctuary, as Lorna called it, is rotund. It is a vast area, a garden of concrete. Someone must have elevated this terrain, because water does not touch it, and thus it is blissfully dry. Someone has planted small campfires here and there, contained by metallic fences, tinting the darkness into tangible warmth.

There are no personal spaces, but the mutants here make do. Wanda can see the frantic attempts at creating some sort of privacy withing these walls. From a small girl shielding her sleeping bag with cartons to a boy forming small dogs from the concrete that surely spring to life if someone would dare go closer - all shielding themselves from outside forces, from anyone else but themselves. Most mutants are below the age of thirty, except from Caliban whose age is basically unimaginable and an old man, cloaked in all black. Few mutants look them in the eyes as they walk past them, following Caliban to his own den. And everyone is ragged, haggard and on the edge. Wanda feels distrust and fear as sharply as she can feel the warmth of the fire, and as openly as she can see the deep wound Pietro carries.

_What a waste_, she thinks as she looks around, _what an outrage_.

She doesn't realize, but there is a man somewhere close by, whose mantra has been the same for years now.

xvii.

Dinner is burnt porridge, rat-free. They eat in relative silence, save for the occasional glances they share in-between them. Pietro's stare is pained and tired. Lorna's is careful, alert and tense. Wanda keeps her face arranged, because Caliban is staring at them like a wolf ready to devour. He doesn't even blink, which is creepy enough. But even more strange is the way he talks to himself, gibberishes that do not make the slightest of sense.

They help to clean up afterwards - a mutant girl named Skids provides clean water by secreting it from the sewers - and only then do they talk.

They sit, huddled together, facing Caliban.

Lorna speaks first, brave. Her voice reverberates in the cavity of the undergrounds.

"These are my friends. They need help" she points at Pietro's leg. Simple. "Can they stay?"

Caliban licks his mouth as he measures them up.

"Help doesn't come free, child" he says at last. "Caliban and Masque are alone and digging new tunnels is such a task. How can your friends help? They are just two more mouths to feed."

A chance for a deal. So Wanda cuts him off.

"I am a telepath. A telekinetic too!"

It is not technically a lie.

A shadow dances across the Morlock's face. He turns to Lorna.

"Have you the same powers?"

Ah. Now that is quite a lie.

"Ye-yes." says Lorna, very unconvincingly. Were the tunnels brighter, her cheeks would be seen as scarlet. "It's a common power. You know..."

Caliban hums and chuckles. He seems awfully entertained.

"Yes, yes, in-deeeeed." he drawls out the 'e' like some sort of melody. Then he turns towards Pietro. "What about you?"

Pietro smiles, all cheeky, all teeth.

"I'm just fast, man."

Caliban's mouth turn downwards, his eyes sliding to his wounded leg.

"You are not fast now" It is truth. " There is no use to you like this."

Pietro visibly withers.

His eyes dance across them again.

"But you can stay" he scratches his nose, before reaching under his bedrolls, delving under the dusty sheets. "For now."

And then there is a knife in his hands - it is a butchering blade, shiny and well-kept. Wanda doesn't think he will attack them, but readies herself nevertheless. She can see Lorna still as a statue and hear Pietro's sharp inhale.

Then Caliban offers her the knife.

"Callisto will decide your fate. Not Caliban." his eyes are glinting like the blade in his palms. "Lorna-girl has been proven useful. Helps us dig new tunnels. Steals for us from aboveground. Would shed her blood, when needed."

"_If _needed" Lorna corrects him, but she is not looking at Caliban - she is looking at Wanda. Her gaze says: _there is no other way__ right now_.

Her gaze also says: _I am sorry. _

"Until you are here, under our care" continues Caliban. "You must be willing to pay this price."

He makes a long cut on his palm, following his life-line, and offers the knife again.

Pietro shakes his head.

Wanda takes the knife anyway. She cleans its tip and its belly from the fresh blood - and only then does she cut her own flesh, fast and light. It takes a second till the wound reddens, angry and fresh. She shows it to Caliban, who nods, content.

"Now what?" she asks. Her voice is steadier than she feels at the moment.

"Now you follow Lorna-girl. She has her own cot. Tomorrow, you will get some work from Caliban."

And he turns, as an attempt to finish the conversation.

"Wait" Wanda stands, suddenly angry. The wound on her hand pulses - whether from the power or the hurt, she isn't sure. "He needs medical attention."

Caliban doesn't turn around as he answers her.

"Callisto will return soon. Helga, our healer is coming home with her, child. Until then: ask Sunder or Masque for clean water. Ask Masque for bandages. Ask for their help, not mine."

She waits a bit for Caliban to point out these people, but he doesn't face them again.

xviii.

Lorna apparently collects stones and bits of rocks. Their functions, she explains, are manifold. First, they add to the aesthetic of the place: she owns no jewellery and has no interest in them. The stones, however sharp or stogy, are beautiful in their uniqueness. They shine, and some have an odd coloring, or a texture that catches the eye. She feels comfort when looking at them and reaps peace if she counts their numbers, an overall of forty-six pebbles. Secondly, these gems serve a more practical purpose: they crown and separate her cot from the others.

She makes Wanda's bed next to what she calls a couple of agates and carnelians. They are red and scarlet and rueish brown, something she prefers in hue.

"You trust them?" Wanda asks when Lorna finally sits down next to her. It feels like years since they rested. She wants to wash herself and her clothes, but finds herself unable to think about standing up.

Two cots away, she can see Pietro's silhouette, the way his leg is elevated and being scrutinized by the man in the cloak and another teenage boy. When she looks back at her sister - the term more and more familiar - she cannot see Lorna's profile, cannot fathom her expression. Her two-colored hair bans her face, acting as a curtain.

"Not really" she looks at her now, and her expression is bitter. "But they are the only options I have."

Very carefully, so that she doesn't frighten her, Wanda takes Lorna's hands into her own. Her sister's hands are dry, and there is dirt under her nails. One her palms, mirroring hers, is slashed and cut open. A promise. A deal.

"The only option you _had_." she squeezes those fighter's hands of hers.

Lorna watches her, and Wanda realizes how familiar her expression is, the feral stare, as Luther called it at home, when Wanda's fury got better hold of her. Lorna's stare is like a knife now. She has seen this stare in her mirror, she has seen this stare on TV, and now she sees it on Lorna's face. Trauma is hereditary, she read, and she thinks of the man whom they must not name yet, whom she thinks about constantly in the backtrack of her mind and dares not call him what he _should_ be. She thinks of a building breaking, of the _metallic_ taste of blood when she accidentally bit her tongue when running, and strangely, of a jawbone, slowly and surely unclenching. Anger is part of trauma, the article said. Can one be conceived in such primal emotions only? Can one conceive just feeling fury, and nothing else?

"Lorna" she says, because hers is not the name she fears. "As soon as Pietro's leg heals, we are off to Xavier. For a new beginning."

She doesn't say anything, but there is an expectation hanging in the air now, heavy like a dead man.

"Come with us."

xviii.

At the end, Lorna helps Pietro back to her cot, to his designated place (between four sodalites and two zircons). He gets Lorna's mattress, because that is the most comfortable, while they share a bedroll, which is technically two, because it got torn in half by something Wanda decides to discuss another time.

Pietro's wound got cleaned and bandaged and he is proud to say that the bullet hasn't touched the bone. Lucky. The minute his head hits the torn mattress, he falls asleep.

"About the Xavier stuff" Lorna says in the semi-darkness. "I can't promise anything."

"Don't you want to be aboveground?" whispers Wanda as she nestles herself in the waves of plaids Lorna showered her with. She cannot imagine someone would want to stay here for longer than a day. "Xavier has a place for people like us."

Lorna is silent for a long time, but this time, Wanda presses her on.

"What are you afraid of?"

She hisses.

"Nothing, just - I fucked up. Okay? I fucked up and people are right to hunt me for that."

"Lorna, we all messed it up. Hell, I mess up everyday! Pietro almost died cause I was careless. At Xavier's, we might -"

"Have you ever killed a person accidentally?" Lorna's whisper is harsh. A paradox. Wanda didn't think this was possible till now. "Cause I did. Not one. Not two. I killed almost a hundred."

She cannot think about a thing to say. Lorna finishes the conversation instead of her.

"I will help you the best I can until you are here. But I'm not you or Pietro. I don't want to meet Xavier. And I sure as hell don't want to meet _him_."

xix.

Wanda dreams about a girl whose hair is aflame.

They are sitting in a library richly decorated, and both of them are flying, high, high, way above the velvet floor. The air smells of old wood and tradition and there is an immense power coming from the epicentrum of this dream. The first wave of this energy hits her as soons as she steps onto the sleeping world, and she is drunk on it.

"Hello" her voice sounds funny, as if she was talking through a helmet. The girl looks up, all freckles and gentle smile, and suddenly, Wanda knows her name.

The girl is called _Jean_. She is around her age, all lithe limbs and careful focus.

"Hi, Wanda."

"You know my name!" A wonder. She smiles back at this all-fire girl. "How?"

"We've been searching for you for a long time now."

"We?"

"The Professor and me."

The realization is even more powerful than their aura combined. She falters in the air, unsure about her grounding. The floor is even smaller, but there is no roof above them to knock them out or stop them.

"You mean _Professor_ Xavier? Charles Xavier?" she asks, hopeful. _Please_, she thinks. _Please, let us have this_. "Listen, we are here in Newark, but my brother - "

"Wanda" Jean cuts her off, sudden. "I know this is a lot, but we have been forced out from the Institute. It's Gyrich and the -"

She doesn't know whether it's Jean's or her emotional and mental state that upholds the connection between them, but though her mouth keeps spinning, Jean's voice gets lost in this dream translation. It's like hearing a very old recording, scarred by time and distance.

" - ebro has been compromised and [...]scated by.. .. .[. . . .X-men]... a lot, but let's meet on the ninth of October, next week, ...sday, at the entrance of ... B[]klyn Botanic .. ... careful.. .. fiers everywhere."

And then Wanda feels another presence in the dream, someone whose presence is both the equivalent of being bundled in a warm blanket after a long day and getting thrown into an icy lake. Then a voice, clear as a bell, a melody.

"_Wanda, I am sorry, but we don't have anymore time. You must get out of there, as soon as possible. Trust us, as we trust you now. Be brave. Be brave."_

"Professor -"

She awakes suddenly, a jolt of pain in her head.

Next to her, Lorna mumbles something about rats. Pietro sleeps open-mouthed, stock-still, like the dead.

The echoes in her head keep her awake for a long time.


End file.
